


the flower prince

by Relvich



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drarry Hell Secret Santa, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, I PROMISE THIS TIME, M/M, alright this is a real mess, drake joins the horcrux hunt, flower prince is a way of referring to a playboy in mandarin, he even makes some friends, its a good time(?), kind of prose in a word vomit sort of way, only vaguely linear, so i had to weave that in there with the hanahaki for Peak Irony, surprise cri! its me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21913240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Relvich/pseuds/Relvich
Summary: It’s almost comforting now, the thorns that snaked in his lungs, took root in his blood, intertwined with his veins so deeply that they are no longer determinable from leaf and petal and vine. It is comforting, the clockwork of dull throbs, the reliability of bloody roses, acacia, petunia from his lips, the reminder that he could feel. That he could love.It is less satisfying, the reminder that he is dying, the reminder that he is in love irrevocably. Unrequitedly.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	1. once upon a time

**Author's Note:**

> If one could learn to love another and earn their love in return, by the time the last petal fell, then, the spell will be broken. —Linda Woolverton

It’s almost comforting now, the thorns that snaked in his lungs, took root in his blood, intertwined with his veins so deeply that they are no longer determinable from leaf and petal and vine. It is comforting, the clockwork of dull throbs, the reliability of bloody roses, acacia, petunia from his lips, the reminder that he could feel. That he could _love._

It is less satisfying, the reminder that he is dying, the reminder that he is _in_ love irrevocably. Unrequitedly _._

In the beginning, though, it had been terrifying. Not yet the comfort of routine (not yet an escape route). Well — not in the very beginning. No, in the first pages of his ‘once upon a time’, it was just a stab of pain here, a stubborn cough that refused to go away. Nothing that couldn’t be ascribed to a common cold.

And he was _eleven._ No matter how dark people believed his family was, no matter how correct the rumors may be, by eleven he had not yet learned of the flower-killing-curse. Not yet heard of _Hanahaki,_ his destiny, his doom. Years or decades slower than avada kedavra but just as green. It is not inoperable, but he refuses to cull the garden within him. This is something that deserves protecting. In his later years he reflects that it should be better to die of lovesickness (heh) than in service of the Eaters (which, he may well end up doing anyway).

* * *

It starts because he is a stupid starstruck kid and a boy refuses to shake his hand. He has had several years to meditate on this, and this is the snapshot moment that he has decided has doomed him. He can remember, then, the sharp (thorn) stab of betrayal and humiliation and embarrassment that he felt that night, that he had never felt before that night. In retrospect it was so, so stupid, and he did far worse things to the boy in return, but at the time it had _hurt._ A _lot._

This is the other reason he’d pinned it to then. It had hurt. A lot. Maybe a little bit like roots taking hold in his chest.

He was familiar enough with the feeling _now_ to _tell._

* * *

The first time he had coughed up a whole flower it.

Was indescribable, really. He had been coughing up petals for months and that. That was almost manageable, but this.

It was a sunflower, for one thing. He sat in the Slytherin dorm bathrooms, clutching the toilet and sobbing, wishing, _hoping_ no one else would come in, hoping no one else would care enough (either truly care or care for _blackmail)_ to check on a small sobbing first year in the stalls. This one time, his hopes are repaid kindly by Merlin and the universe. 

He is chokingchokingchoking, tears streaming down his face, petals tickling the back of his throat. When he coughed his hands came away dotted with red and water below him tinted pink, little yellow petals littered the toilet, the ground. 

_Eventually,_ he thought, _eventually I will have to throw up and it will be over._

The next traitorous thought was simply _for now,_ and that almost sent him back into his crying hysterics. But. That desperation, that gasp and subsequent gag finally sent the pretty thing onto his tongue, rolling into his waiting fingers. 

The thing filled up both his tiny child’s hands, and he cried for a very long time.

* * *

When he is older he  _ aches _ in his skin, full to bursting with life that was not his own, plants and flowers and so, so much blood. Last time he could stomach a mediwitch exam he is told that there are morning glories climbing up his spine. It is fitting. He does not care.

~~ He cares. A reminder of his own mortality is clawing its way to his brain and may blossom there. He cares. He cares. It is still  _ fitting. _ ~~

* * *

...His friends call him the flower prince. He pretends it annoys him, and they pretend it is just another inside joke. 

He supposes it’s nice to have friends that understand him. Understand who he Is, who what he Will Be, that before long he will be fertilizer in the earth.

Also he is told it means _playboy_ in another language, and where the implications of the name in English are those of soft sadness, the hilarity of _that_ irony leaves him in stitches every time.

Player. Sure. He’ll take that.


	2. oil and water

When they are together, worlds collide. Words crash together, secrecy and open hatred spin and mix together like ~~oil and water~~ honey and warm milk, and he hates how much he loves it, how much he turns toward him and their stupid stupid rivalry like he, himself is the sunflower and Harry is the fucking sun. It’s infuriating, how much he needs him, how many petals choke him when he wants to be spitting ire. He’s _insufferable._ But then, so is Draco. They feed on each other in the worst way possible, throwing insults in the corridors that make Draco throw up whole gardens and that Harry probably never thinks about again. 

He’s proven wrong about that, many years later, or perhaps one fateful day not too long from then. But he’s proven wrong, and Harry _did_ think about him, but as a threat, and at the time, he _was,_ so that was fine. Later on it doesn’t phase him because that is _certainly_ not what he thinks of him now as he kisses all of his scars, several strangely shaped like flowers.

* * *

After about five years things had started spreading to his bloodstream. 

~~After about five years he had learned the hard way that his father would rather a tragically dead child than one that would speak to the Saviour. After about five years he knows that trying to speak to him is more painful than the disease, anyway. After about five years he is resigned to his death no matter which way it comes.~~

Point was that things were slowly getting harder to hide. He had been frustrated to tears exactly once this year and panicked when he was momentarily blinded — it took Blaise gently thumbing glory petals from his eyes to realize that his eyelids were black, not purpley-blue. He cries flowers now. _That_ must be in some ameteur’s bullshit poetry collection somewhere. 

A small group of his friends knew, of course. He had to put them legally in his will, and he’d required their blood for that. A few teachers knew, limited to McGonagall and Snape and _Dumbledore,_ of all people. 

And Poppy knew. Poppy did not just _know,_ though. Poppy Knew, and whenever they crossed paths she could not quite hide the melancholy pity in her eyes. He tries not to be angry with her. She knew him as intimately as anyone could, has peeked into his ribcage and seen the secrets that grow there, that whisper secrets and curl with truth and live and breathe and eat him. If anyone has a right to be sad about it. It is her.

Draco wonders if anyone will _not_ know, when the Glories start sprouting from the nape of his neck. 

He decides that that is _his_ choice.

Even so, it turns his stomach when he trims them off.

* * *

The first time he coughs up a whole rose it snakes up his throat and there is thrice as much blood as usual from the burs that sink into his esophagus and tear at it like paper, and its bloom is completely red.

He knows somewhere deep in his soul that it had at one point been pure white. He wonders, not for the first time, if his whole life is just some awful, awkward, _deadly_ symbolism now.

* * *

He learns to speak in the language of flowers, in the way his body speaks to him. He is no good at speaking — communicating, anyway (because he is devilishly good at weaving stories, at _telling)_ , but he is a hell of a savante in flowers, in their meanings, in their secrets that whisper in his blood and their messages that curl through his brain.

Sunflowers, acacia, roses. Petunia. Morning Glory. Sunflowers.

~~_Happiness to bursting, sunshine, soft yellow; fireplace glow. Concealed affection, love. Love, passion. Resentment; your presence soothes, soothes_ me. _Mortality. Happiness. Rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat,_ ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day after everything is okay, he will sit down beside family and watch his first muggle movie, and it will be Beauty and the Beast, and when he cries it will be the crystal clearness of saltwater, and when he laughs there will be no thorns digging into his ribs.


	3. anemone

He is still chosen for the Eaters, of course. It is more for revenge on his idiot father, anyway, too cunning to allow for his common sense to ever, ever catch up with him. 

The Death Eaters. What a stupid name. No matter how much you dodge it, how much you want to subvert death for immortality, it is always, _always_ death that dines upon you. Draco has known this since he has been eleven and is so tired of being surrounded by children (not the Hogwarts students, as they actually _were_ still children, and easily forgiven believing in _immortality)_ throwing tantrums about the nature of things. Life goes on and then death eats you. It is as simple as that.

So he is a Death Eater, and he is given a death mission that he’s sure old _Riddle_ isn’t crying over considering he already has an expiration date of sooner rather than later, anyway. He’s sure his father has shed no tears over it — oh, he’s in duress, of course. But he’ll get over himself just as well as he would have if he had died from the flowers. 

He told him, once, with pride and an expectation of agreement, that he planned to have no flowers at his funeral. It’d have been disrespectful, he intoned, to pay respect to the dead with the thing that had killed him.

Draco entirely disagreed, of course. Just as well as the flowers killed him they reminded him that life was worth living before the eating, anyway. If he had his way, he’d spend his life and death surrounded by the things; he’d lay in a coffin with a mattress of petals. It’s just what is Right. 

He is the Flower Prince. Sweetpea. Poppies. ~~Marigold.~~

~~_Goodbye, thank you for the lovely time. Departure, eternal rest. The cruelty of griefjealousy._ ~~

* * *

~~Anemones have begun to sprout out of his skin on the ink of his left forearm.~~

~~He does not snip them off.~~

* * *

He spoke fire like raindrops, each lick of noxious heat like soothing drink to his angry mind. 

And then out of the blue one day they didn’t speak at all. 

Which is probably for the best. He had a mission now, and while he didn’t plan on completing it, really, it’d look bad if he wasn’t making any progress. He didn’t want his mother to suffer after all.

It is not until later he learns that the speaking stopped because the stealth had begun.

_Well._

Not too much later — it all happens in moments, moments that blur by like landscapes on a train. In one, he is coughing blood into a bathroom sink, fighting with a _stubborn_ rose tearing out of and at his throat, tears and acacia petals leaking from his eyes (thank Merlin they are so very small), the next moment he sees Harry (which, is both absolutely radiant and absolutely terrifying _what if he sees)_ and he’s scrambling for his wand and he’s _sure_ he looks like a deer in headlights and the next moment he is on the cold, hard, ground with no idea of how he got there.

 _A curse,_ his mind supplies, which is helpful and not. And then he almost screams, because it _hurts, so badly,_ but he is used to that so instead what comes out are whimpers and _still more coughs_ and at last, _at last,_ the rose slips out from between his lips. _Finally,_ he thinks, and it is almost hysterical. _Stubborn little bud._

Not only is it searing like cuts (because they _are,_ he just touched his chest and it came away _red)_ but a strange tug upward like pulling teeth (which he supposes is his garden reaching up for the first air they have ever felt and _oh gods it felt like they were taking his bones and organs with them)_ and— and—

“Oh gods, Malfoy,” which, okay, ridiculous, because hadn’t he cast it? Funny. He was going to kill him sooner or later but he really had figured it to be later. Looking at his front at his flowers and his blood— and then Harry pushing them back in, hands stained red—

“Okay, okay, yeah don’t talk that’s fine, _shit,_ I’m sorry,” he is mumbling at a mile a minute and he wished he could find it in himself to be angry instead of resigned. Really, this was better anyway. An Eater or Harry to be his murderer? He’d choose Harry every time, because what was the garden if not a tribute to the boy who lived and laughed and spat vitriol? 

_“Levicorpus,”_ and he was in the air. 

Huh. Wouldn’t have been more convenient for him to leave him in the bathroom? There was even a drain right there for the blood. Though bleeding out may have taken awhile what with the stalks stifling the flow. That’s fine, though. Would have given him time to gather his peace around himself like a blanket. 

Sometime before they get to the hospital wing he blacks out.

* * *

When he woke up it was to the sterility of the hospital in the bed that is generally set aside for him. He is here often enough, anyway. And he is alone.

“Poppy,” his voice is so hoarse he would not be surprised if she did not hear him. “Poppy?”

The curtain around his little quarter of the hospital wing is pulled aside at once, and the relief in her eyes is so palpable. He supposes they have grown something like close over the years, she was always so upset when he got hurt or when the disease progressed.

“Oh, Mister Malfoy, you’re awake. We weren’t sure if you were going to—”

She does not finish, but he hears her anyway. He gives her a shaky smile.

“What happened?”

“Well,” she intoned, “I had to keep Severus from snipping your roots to close the wounds. Your flowers were pushing the wounds open so far that we did, however, have to cut off a few heads to heal them up.”

He winced. That would be a _hell_ of a regrowth process. The back of his throat would taste like cut grass for _weeks._

“Anyway,” she continues after a look that is both sympathetic and firy, “really, we should be the ones asking _you_ that. After Mister Potter brought you here he’s been pale as a sheet, hasn’t spoken a word. Severus is convinced the poor boy did it, but he looks like he’s seen a ghost, and you know him. All rushing around to bring people who need it to me.”

Draco nods, heart racing. They cannot be allowed to know who did this. He has better things to do than being held down by the consequences of whatever _this_ would be, he has to fight the Dark Lord, he has to _win._

“Yes, don’t _I_ know it,” is what he says, and Poppy laughs at their very private joke. She knows for whom the flowers grow. 

“Is he awake?” he hears from outside his curtain, and she raises a brow. He nods lightly, wondering what the hell he’s going to have to say to get the both of them out of _this_ mess. She parts the curtain, and the man behind it looks like a feral animal, almost, with a look in his eyes like the choking smoke of a housefire, and as soon as he opens his mouth Draco knows he is going to try to confess to the sin of _doing his job,_ shearing offshoot branches of the Eaters.

“As I was saying,” he clears his throat and grimaces at the taste of metal, reaching for a glass of water so courteously placed on the nightstand, “I have no idea who did this. I was crying in Myrtle’s restroom, you know how no one goes in there, I heard something, and suddenly I was just on the ground. I’m lucky that Harry was passing through and that I was visible from the doorway — I’m getting sloppy, leaving the door open, really. I would have been dead if not for him.”

“Drake,” Poppy says gently. “The wound is on your front, sweetheart.”

“The petals, you know?” he said, looking Harry in the eye as he opened his mouth _again,_ no doubt to try and talk over him. He is obscenely lucky that Poppy has turned her back on him to speak to Draco. “You know how they are now. Had rose petals in my eyes when I turned to see who it was from the sound.”

She pursed her lips. She has always hated it when he has been injured and he couldn’t say how. Or, more appropriately, who. 

“Well. I suppose — just be careful. Dark times.”

He smiles wanly. “Indeed. May I go, or am I under observation?”

“The latter, unfortunately. Your dinner will be brought to you; visitation hours end a little after eight, but until then.” She gave a secret wink, and how ridiculous was it that he blushed? The man had tried to kill him not even — shit, he didn’t even know how long it had been. How long did it take for the countercurse? How long had he been unconscious after?

“I—” is the first disjointed and too sharp word out of Potter’s mouth, and he quickly raised a finger to his mouth, more a stabbing motion upward really, and willed a Silencing charm around his curtain. 

“Are you _trying_ to get yourself expelled?” he snapped, pulling his thin blanket a little tighter around himself, which. Ouch. New scars. Right.

“Me? What are _you_ trying to pull?” he is fuming, but not in his usual way. He seems more desperate than anything. Like he is scared. “Why are you protecting me? I _did_ this.”

“Yes, and you _undid_ it,” Draco replies. “And what should it matter anyway? You saw my mark. You were only doing what you _should,_ Golden Boy, why the fuck would you take me here?”

“Don’t call me that,” was his immediate response and really? That’s what he took away from that? “And — _Christ,_ Malfoy, what the fuck? What I _should?”_

He scoffs. Looks away. Is silent for a few beats.

“Look, Potter.” The words are short, cutting. “Just because you _know_ now does not give you the right to know what I have had to do to survive, but maybe it will paint a nice enough picture for you. I took the Mark. It was more or less willing , but not by any standard that _matters,_ and well, the flowers were — _are —_ going to kill me anyway, so what the fuck do I have to lose but my family’s safety — which is what I _would have_ lost by refusing to take it. I am doing what I can to stall their plans for me, and you are _well_ within your rights to kill me at this point. I could not care less.”

Now it is Harry’s turn to be silent, and Draco took quiet pleasure in the fact that he looked somewhat like a gaping fish. Hah. At least _he_ could still look dignified half-dead and laid out like an open book. He had seen his _flowers —_

 _“Fuck,_ Malfoy,” he breathed. “What the _fuck.”_

“This is why you have to win, Potter. This—” ugh, if he starts crying again, he will never forgive himself. “You have to win this. I don’t have a stake in this game. I’m dead either way, and very soon, to be honest. But you and your friends could make it — my family if they’re lucky. Just.” 

He takes a deep breath. “And you can’t do that on probation or rotting in Azkaban, so—”

“I didn’t know what it did.” Harry says, and it comes out all in a jumbled rush. “The spell— it just said ‘for enemies’, and your— your mark, and,”

That gives him pause. He blinks — how stupid can one boy be? — and then laughs so hard he feels the blood come up on his tongue. 

“Well, then.” He says, feeling tiny petals (lavender? Why lavender?) come to his eyes. “Make sure you mean it when you use it next. It’d take out most of us, when it comes to that.”

Harry swallowed, opened his mouth to say something,

And then walked away, leaving Draco to only wonder at what it would have been.

* * *

When he wakes up next, there is a bouquet of flowers on his bedside with no note.

Azalea. Purple Hyacinth. Oleander.

Take care of yourself. I’m sorry, forgive me. Caution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anemone - forsaken  
> lavender - relief; relief from stress


	4. protection

...He does not have to ask Poppy to know who the bouquet is from. 

He blinks, reaches out to touch them. He almost thinks they are not real, for a second. Why does he care? Why go to the trouble? How does he even know what these  _ mean? _

...And that conjures up the image of him having to get Granger for help with it and that, and for whatever reason, that has him laughing harder than he has in months.

* * *

His next visitor is Dumbledore.

He is both surprised and not. 

“Why are you here.” He is so tired.

“The power of love is not one to be underestimated, my boy.” He says in lieu of answer. He is touching Draco’s  _ flowers _ (not his soul, but a gift from his roots) _.  _ He raises an eyebrow and fights off a possessive growl. 

“It can kill, yes,” he says, with a knowing glance at his forearm — at the flowers growing on his Mark, he somehow knows — “but it can also nurture, protect. Exactly what you have done by letting dear Harry, hm, off the hook, shall we say?” Smile, twinkle, an expression that may as well be a wink shared between friends having a joke. 

Draco is not amused. “He told you.”

“He didn’t. I already knew.”

Also plausible.

“You want me to sell information. Use me like Severus?”

He  _ almost  _ lets his guard down, he sees an almost-pause in the old man’s posture. “Ah. I did not think  _ you  _ knew.”

“Slytherin cunning and all that.”

“Quite. But I did have a different thought for you. I’m sending him on a  _ very  _ dangerous quest, Mister Malfoy. He is going to need all the help he can get.”

“What makes you think I am at  _ all  _ invested in that?”

“Hm. Acacia has such a  _ beautiful  _ bloom, does it not?” He smiles at him again, and his blood goes cold in his vine-entwined veins. 

So he knows, then.

(Acacia. Concealed love.)

“What do you want from me.”

“As of now, Mister Malfoy, nothing at all. Keep doing what you have been. I will be in touch.”

When he swept out of the room, Draco was finally afforded the comfort of having his head in his hands.

* * *

(Honestly, it is a miracle for them, having someone so adept with plants with them when they are on their wild hunt for fractured soul, but that is a bouquet for later.)

* * *

His (real) friends are inverses of each other, and he loves them. Thing is, that’s requited, so none of his flowers are for them (but in a way, they are, because  _ all  _ of him is for them). 

Anyway, they are inverses. Pansy  (loving thoughts, love in idleness, free thought) is loud in her support, in her concern. She is raging eyes and sharp barks of commands and quick pats on shoulders and arms to make sure nothing hurt is concealed under purposely dark fabric. Blaise is her opposite. Those that aren’t close to him do not know who he is close to. No one can blackmail your family if no one knows you have one, if no one knows who they are. Likewise no one can use them against you, or you against them. His love is quiet. Gently warm.

In private, again, they are the opposite. Pansy retreats to her resting state when it is just the three of them. All of those showy affections drain her — not to say that they are not  _ mostly  _ truthful. The truth is simply that she is more naturally quiet in them. She is loud in public to protect those she considers hers just as easily as snarling  _ mine!  _ because she is a very,  _ very  _ able witch and anyone who might target the weaker members of her pack know that they have her to deal with. Know that she may be the last witch they  _ ever  _ deal with. Blaise, however, allows himself more warmth alone. Casual touches, cuddles (he’d deny to his death), leaning against each other for support. Loud laughs, skittering stop-and-start snickers.

They are perfect, and Draco can no longer imagine life without them or their little ragtag friend group. 

They did not take the fact that they nearly had to go on through life without  _ him  _ even earlier than what they should have very well.

“Shirt. Off.  _ Now.”  _ Pansy snarled, already pushing open buttons with sharp little knife-hands. 

“Wow, pushy, pushy, we both know I’m gay,” it’s a weak joke and he knows it, but  _ Merlin.  _ He complies though — there is very, very little he would not do for her — and she snarls again to see the scars on his pale skin. 

There is a map of his garden on the front of him, now. A lighting-web of cuts and torn skin, but the flowers, oh the flowers have taken residence in the cracks of the mortar (of the scar tissue. He is withering. He is blooming.) His whole soul just lay bare from his sternum to his waist, and he is sick to his stomach to think it. At least it’s just Pansy. At least it’s just Blaise.

Blaise is quiet, but he always is when he is murderous.

Pansy is not.

“Who.” it is not even a question.  _ “Who,  _ Drake.”

He chokes the name down like an ill-timed petal. “Can’t say, couldn’t see him clearly.”

“Draco.” it is Blaise’s whiskey-smooth timbre this time, except it rattles with rage. “Draco, that’s so full of shit I don’t even know where to begin. You have the most hypervigilance of anyone I know, if you’re not telling us there’s a reason. Fear of retribution or protection?”    
He flinches at just the wrong time, and Blaise sucks in a breath. “Protection? Seriously? Who would you even- oh God.” 

“Don’t hurt him?” He pleads weakly. 

“Draco this is— this is beyond insanity! He should be expelled! You could have  _ died!” _

“I  _ didn’t.  _ Plus, you know. Eater. Kind of deserved—”

“Oh we are  _ so  _ not unpacking that right now,” Pansy, this time, “But that is a  _ whole  _ load of horseshit. No.”   


“He didn’t know what it did.” It comes out in a breath of a whisper, and he isn’t sure if he feels like laughing or crying at the absurdity of what his life has become. “The spell, I mean. How stupid is that? He dropped a spell that could have easily killed me and then brought me to hospital. Just, what even—”

Instantly there are arms around him and  _ that  _ is when he realizes he’s crying, actual tears, no petals, water rolling down his cheeks in raindrops that get held up in the crevasses and valleys of his face and drip ever downward. 

He’s hurting so much that he doesn’t even notice that the gardens within him are hurting  _ less.  _


	5. to the slaughter

Wake up. Coughing fit. Class. An apple. A Room. Sleep. Wake up. Again. His Mark itched but not as much as the anemones that grew on it but that’s an itch he can’t scratch, he is forsaken, he is the Slytherin prodigy, he is the flower prince. He slows down his work on the charms of the Cabinet only to receive more pressure from the Eaters in return, he slows down further to irritate them more. They cannot get to him here until he fixes it, anyway, and they will not threaten his family over the Cabinet until much, much later. They still think he is loyal. Or that he is scared. He is only one of those things. 

He… worries, about the Dumbledore component. But what is he to do? So. He goes on, business as usual. Wake up. Rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. 

* * *

“My boy,” Oh, and he hates that. How the fuck did Potter stand this treatment. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called this little meeting, Mister Malfoy?”

Gag. That was no petal.

“Mildly curious is the most I’ll grant you, considering I might have a good idea.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

“If you already know I’m an Eater it’s probable you know more about what I was sent to do, specifically, than what my… ugh, Master had hoped.”

“...Ah. That ugly old thing. And you do not need to call him that. Not here, not to me. You’re correct in the assumption that I am aware of your mission.”

“Both?”

“Both.”

A pause. A sigh. A grimace.

“I have a plan for you, Mister Malfoy.”

He is so tired. “And what is that, exactly?”

“You will not have to kill me. I’ve made arrangements for that already. And I have a plan to sneak you away from the castle with young Harry. Lord Voldemort will likely believe you dead, therefore seeing you to your freedom.”

“...You’re insane.  _ Arrangements?  _ Sneak me away? Do you  _ actually  _ think they’ll believe—” __

“See, here is a thing we share, dear boy.” The man pulls his hand out of his robe — for the first time he’s seen all year, Draco realizes — to reveal something blackened and shrivelled. “An expiration date. Yours for far prettier a reason than mine.”

“... _ Alright _ . I’ll bite. What’s going on.”

The old man smiled then, and it was more like the baring of teeth than the twinkle Draco was used to.

He supposes it is easiest to forget the snakes in lion’s clothing.

* * *

“Dr— Malfoy?  _ What _ are you doing here?!”

“Listen, Potter, we don’t have much time—”

“He  _ killed Dumbledore _ —”

“I know, and I  _ know, _ but we have to leave— get Granger and Weasley right now, bring anything you need with you, we have to go, I’ll explain  _ everything.” _

_ “Why should I trust you right now?!”  _ This is going nowhere fast, lucky that the old man left him a map to steer him off this particular cliff.

“Lemon drops and sugar quills, Harry, what do those mean in Dumbledore’s code?”

_ Go. And fragile messages. _

_ Fuck. _

“I’ll grab my things.”

“Meet me at the Come and Go Room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Later on, Harry will tell Draco (not Potter telling Malfoy) about the day that he’d had the day that Dumbledore died, and it will make him nearly as angry as learning of the fractured soul buried in his love. Snake in lion’s clothing indeed; the old coot led children to the slaughter, directed them into the gaping maw of his plans, swallowed them whole. 
> 
> No children of theirs would be named Albus.


	6. cherry blossoms

Cough. Drop, release. Flutter, dance on the breeze. Land soft and sweet in the water below, washed away by the gentle flow of the creek. Repeat. He is a cherry tree and his blood and his petals are the effects in a movie scene, he is the transition, he is _in_ transition, he is in a whirl of petals that flow quick and easy from his throat in an uprising flurry. He is cold. He is warm to look at them. He is withering. He is blooming. He is flourishing. He is dying.

“I wish you would tell me who they’re for.”

“We don’t all get what we wish for,” He answers wryly, smirking at the boy that has come to join him, green eyes that match his own green insides. 

“Yeah, okay, I walked into that one.” Grumbling, he manages to fold gracefully into a sitting position next to Draco, legs swinging off of the little ravine he’d been pondering next to. “Think the flower killing curse’s a bit more extreme than ‘not getting what you wish for’, but what do I know.”

“Next to nothing.” He answers dryly, takes a moment to clear the backup of petals from his throat. “This is new, though, this outpouring. It’s never happened like this before. Can’t tell if that means I’m getting better or worse.”

“Let’s hope better.” His eyes are full of grim determination, his mouth a wrought line that brings more than petals to Draco’s fluttering chest. He’s worried. About _him._ That idiot, _he’s_ the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

Draco almost doesn’t even realize he’s kept talking.

“—Seriously, who could it even be, really? Parkinson?” 

He cannot help but let out a bubbling bark of a laugh. “Oh, absolutely not.”

“Zabini?”

“I had no idea you kept such close tabs on who I hang around with, but no. If they were for Pansy or Blaise I wouldn’t have the garden even in the first place, they’re my family, I already _have_ them. Why does this even matter to you, who I die for?”

“Because— because this isn’t _fair,_ Draco, this is such bullshit— you’ve been going through avoiding death and dying all whist dying _anyway_ and you’re _helping_ us and fixing a world you won’t get to see at this point! What the hell’s the point!” 

Oh.

He’s just made the fatal mistake of _caring_ about him.

“...I think that very much _is_ the point, yeah? Fixing something I never get to see. That’s the point. None of us know whether we get to see that world. Death could eat any single one of us. Just because my fate is more certain than most… I don’t know. I think that means I need to help more than anyone else, because I’ll get eaten either way.”

“See! See that’s— that’s _exactly_ what I mean, I—” He takes a deep breath, steadies himself. He’s not even wearing the locket right now. “You’re nothing like how I thought you were. And even if you weren’t you wouldn’t have deserved _this.”_

_No one does. Everyone dies. So many things to say in this beat of silence and yet none of them good enough._

So instead he says this as gently as he can:

“You know barely anything about me.”

“Would you— would you stop? You always do this, act like it was your fault, or like you deserve it, and I hate it!”

“So I should stop doing something _just_ because you hate it? That seems _ever_ so much like me. See, you’re proving my point already.” He grins, musters enough courage to look him in the eye. He doesn’t look half as amused as he’d hoped. Damn.

“Look, I… I’m sorry. I really can’t say. It’s…” Complicated? I don’t want to pressure you? You have a saviour complex as wide as the known universe and you’ll blame yourself? “Private. I guess. May as well keep up my Slytherin mask for a little while longer, you think?”

“Bullshit.” He sounds so tired. “But yeah, if that’s what you want.”

_Oh, it’s not. But we don’t always get what we wish for._

“I… should get started on dinner. Since I don’t have to worry about the petals for the moment.” He waves a hand, indicates the emptiness of the air.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll… I’ll stay here a while.”

“...Call for you when it’s ready?”

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks bluebell.”

It’s just a murmur on the wind.

But he hears him.

_Heh. Alright, fair._

He goes back to camp without another word.

* * *

The next time he coughs up a whole bloom again, he has to leave the tent as to not wake the others, because he’s gagging and nearly throwing up all the while, and he’s not had one this bad in a _long_ time. It’s… he’d gotten complacent, he supposes. He hadn’t had to do this in a while, and now that he has, he’s almost sobbing the blasted thing out (but he’s sobbing saltwater? Not a petal in sight?) and it is _humiliating._

It is made especially so when Hermione follows him out of the tent, crouches next to where he’s kneeling in the dirt, hesitates for exactly four seconds before putting a gentle hand to his back, pets him softly. Takes his hair in her fingers and deftly ties it back, Merlin it's gotten long.

~~But it’s equally as comforting as it is humiliating, so. Gods he misses Pans. Blaise. Hopes they’re okay.~~

“Sorry,” he manages to get out between heaves. The specific way it hurts tells him it’s probably a rose. “Sorry, it’s— I’m not usually this bad, I—” 

“Shh, shut up, Drake. You’re sick. It’s fine.”

“I’m—” gag, leaking tears, cough, blood spatter, gag again, “I”m always sick. Always _been_ sick.”

“I know. Shut up already, let it run its course. I’m going to put on some tea.”

He loves his gardens, but. “Nothing, uh, nothing floral?”

She rolls her eyes, pokes around the embers of the fire. _“Some_ of us have tact, Malfoy.”

He wanted to retort, but then he was overtaken by the retches again.

* * *

When it came all the way up, it was a rose of brilliant red, and Draco knows somewhere deep in his soul it always had been. He supposes his life _is_ symbolism now. He shares this thought with Hermione and it scores him a snort-laugh he can hold over her _forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he didn’t realize until much later that the petals from the great outpouring were those of ambrosia blossoms.
> 
> bluebell - unconditional, everlasting love  
> ambrosia - your love is reciprocated  
> red roses - love; respect


End file.
